Summer Analyst Review

I enjoyed my internship. The effort put in by HR to make this a pleasant experience was really good. I learnt what opportunities there are within HSBC and what the day-to-day activities for a full-time employee are. The colleagues were/are nice but there could have been more structured in terms of tasks given to me

As we are limited in terms of licenses and software it is hard to add additional value to the clients and colleagues. Everyone knows the limitations that interns deal with so whatever value that I was able to bring was appreciated. Overall, the feeling of being valuable was limited.

During the time of my internship I have been a self-starter. I haven't had a lot of guidance from my supervisor, but instead I asked him for help whenever I came up with something. I would say that to be able to identify issues by yourself is quite important in the role I was put in. I discussed everything I did with my supervisor and he was supportive in all instances.

I was not busy on a daily basis. I rarely received projects to do, but instead had to go out and find my own. In terms of tasks I wish it would have been more structured so that I could prove my capabilities in doing assigned tasks instead of having to identify tasks by myself.

I was not given a lot of responsibility. The projects that I did were mostly small projects that help my team to perform their daily tasks in a more time efficient way. Some of my daily tasks got sent out internally, within HSBC, but most of them stayed within my desk.

What I take away from the internship is the ability to identify how news flow moves the market. I would say that I can now, more easily identify important news from unimportant. I also learnt VBA, which will be very useful in the future, during my time here. Not from my colleagues but because I worked with Excel a lot and learnt it by myself.

General atmosphere is good. It can get a bit harsh sometimes but it's just something that you have to brush off. Overall it depends on how the market is moving. If it's a bad day for a trader they are a bit rougher than usual. The sales staff is always nice though. It got better after every week as well.

I would say that it was set up by two components. One that HR was in charge of, and one at my desk. HR did a great job with weekly seminars and discussions with senior management. When I arrived at my desk it was almost like a surprise that I was coming. They knew that I was coming but they hadn't planned any tasks for me to do. It took me a while to get projects/tasks but overall I had to come up with things to do by myself. Then again because there wasn't that many tasks for me to do they didn't expect me to do that many.

The first week of the internship was dedicated to training. They covered the basics that we would need to know to understand the job but also how to make the best out of it. The training was really good. To sit on the trading floor and listen, see, and get to understand daily tasks and the work as a sales person or trader has been extremely valuable for me as I get to know what to expect in this environment. I also had the opportunity to go to other desks besides my own and understand their business as well.

HSBC has a graduate program. By attending the internship you have a good chance of getting a spot on the graduate program. It is rotational, so you can get to see different parts of the bank and you get to do both sales and trading. The future employment prospects are very appealing.

The social scene between the fellow interns was really good. I haven't experienced any fierce competitiveness between the interns. If someone needed help, help was offered from the other interns. We had for example presentations of projects at the end of the internship and interns did mock presentations for each others and received good feedback.

The cost of living in London is on the high-end. The housing in particular is hard to come by if you're looking for a cheaper place close to the offices. But the salary from the internship has been more than enough for me to live, to explore London, and also be able to save a little bit for myself.

In London you can get anything you want!